Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in early 2004. As of early 2012. Facebook is believed to have more than 900 million users, some more active than others. Users must register before using the site after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profiles. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists, such as “High School Buddies” or “Poker Night Pigs.”
A 2009 study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users. It has been estimated that Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to another report, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.
Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. Estimates have placed between 20-30% of Facebook users as “power users,” which is understood to mean users who frequently link, poke, post, and tag themselves and others.
To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profiles. The Web site is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads. Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings.
Many new smartphones offer access to Facebook services either through their web-browsers or applications. The Facebook iPhone-compatible web site was launched in mid-2007 and within months, over 1.5 million people used it on a regular basis. Among the many features offered by the applications, improved services that include being able to respond to friend requests and notifications are big hits among users. Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and added features such as events, and uploading video with an iPhone 3GS. In the latest update for the Facebook for iPhone app. GPS use is also integrated in the app under the section “places” in which you can discover moments and experiences when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time. This app is compatible with iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4, and 4S running iOS 3.0 or later.
Microsoft developed an application for Facebook on their Windows Phone 7 platform, available in the Windows Phone Marketplace, Messages, Events, News Feed, and Photos can be pinned directly onto the phone's home screen. It also includes tile notifications for events, friend requests, tags, and so on
Google's Android 2.0 OS automatically includes an official Facebook app. Motorola Droid is believed to incorporate this feature. The app has options to sync Facebook friends with contacts, which adds profile pictures and status updates to the contacts list. Research In Motion also offers a Facebook application for the BlackBerry. It includes a range of functions, including an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and using Facebook profile pictures for Caller ID.
Instagram is a free photo sharing program launched in October 2010 that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter to it, and then share it on a variety of social networking services, including Instagram's own. A distinctive feature confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras.
Instagram was initially supported on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch and in early 2012 added support for Android camera phones running 2.2 or higher. Applications for Microsoft-based systems and BlackBerry can be expected to follow. Instagram is distributed via the iTunes App Store and Google Play, among other sources.
Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to stall in some regions, with the site losing as much as 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011. Thus, there appears to be a constant stream for different, unique, and interesting functions or applications for maintaining and even growing Facebook's user-base.
Although Facebook is a popular and powerful social networking service, its use on a portable device, such as iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android-based phones can be limited by the device's capability, which is to only operate when an application is turned on and “talking.”Thus, when the application is off, when the portable device is off, or when the portable device is in sleep mode, Facebook's powerful functions are rendered ineffective by the device. Smart portable devices are frequently turned off or placed in sleep mode as power can quickly drain when constantly in use or when the individual has to attend to other businesses, such as when working.